The Culture Wars Through the Microscope

Good post at Pharyngula that shows, using the example of science education in Texas, what the culture war is all about. It's not about religious freedom, it's not about protecting traditional values, it's about turning the USA into a theocracy through whatever means necessary. The bulk of the post is Steven Shafersman's report on the state of science standards right now; Shafersman is president of Texas Citizens for Science. I found this particularly revealing:

On Friday, 2007 November 17, the SBOE rejected a math textbook in violation of the statutes that govern textbook selection, and the publishers have rightfully appealed the decision to the Commissioner of Education. If that doesn't work, the decision will be appealed to the Attorney General, and then go to litigation in a court of law, because the unlawful rejection will cost the publisher tens of millions of dollars in lost sales.

By Texas law, textbooks can only be rejected by the SBOE if (1) the book contains factual errors that the publisher refuses to correct, (2) the book does not teach the subject's curriculum standards, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), and the publisher refuses to make changes, or (3) the book's binding is not sturdy and the publisher will not fix this. None of these apply in this case. The book contained some errors but the publisher promised to fix them (the other math books contained even more errors), and the book fully met the math TEKS. . . .

Other SBOE members simply refused to give a reason. In reality, the math textbook rejection was a power play designed to assert a precedent for the Board's self-claimed power to reject books for no reason at all, so that they will have this power to reject biology books when they come up for adoption in future years. The radical religious right members of the SBOE have not been able to get mainstream biology texts that contain evolution information thrown out or censored by legitimate means, so they are resorting to naked political force and daring anyone to sue them.

This is about the time the Christianists start screaming about religious discrimination and freedom of speech. If you put it to them seriously that tactics like this amount to cheating, they truly wouldn't know what you meant.

I realize that the politically correct attitude is that they are sincere in their beliefs and we should have respect for that. That, as far as I'm concerned, is really stretching a point: you have to consider, I think, that their beliefs have become a tactic in what is actually nothing more than a major play for total control over the lives of all Americans. This is a sketch of the overall war that the Christianists have declared on America: they want to dispense with the rule of law, dispense with the idea of equality for all, dispense with our basic liberties, all in order to enforce their view as the only view.

Next to people like this, Osama bin Laden's a joke.